Of Flesh and Friendship
by stargatecat
Summary: Jack, Teal'c, and Sam don't look nearly surprised enough to see Daniel appear fully naked in Jack's office in Threads. Here are the five other purely platonic times the team saw Daniel naked or nearly clothe-less over the years. Chapter one begins with a holiday special.
1. Hypothermia for the Holidays

1\. Hypothermia for the Holidays

The frost was so thick on the windowpane that Jack could barely see outside. Lush blankets of snow wrapped the winter landscape, his dock barely visible as it poked out of the snow bank. The lake itself was frozen over and the dusted trees stood still and silent like an audience, hushed in anticipation of a stupendous performance in the anticipatory moments before a curtain rise. Even his truck was long buried. The only movement outside the cabin was the snowflakes in the wind like a living snow globe.

Wiping the flannel of his elbow against the condensation of his breath on the windowpane, Jack cleared more of a view and smiled. This was it. This was what it was all about – the silence, the stillness, the white, blank, potential of the snow and the simplicity of the nothingness. He'd meant to bring the whole team out to the cabin for the holidays, to share with them what a perfect Christmas was like in his book. Then, of course, something had gone wonky with the gate and Carter had gotten stuck at the SGC, Teal'c, who was off world with SG12, was stuck off world until the gate was fixed, and, well, as a loud clatter of god only knew what announced behind him, it was just him and Daniel.

"Jack!" Sighing, Jack tore his gaze away from the silent snowfall and went to investigate the noise.

He found Daniel in the next room, wrapped in a tangle of Christmas lights or, rather, somehow wrapped both in the tangle and attached to the tree itself, both of them on the ground. Jack smirked and wished for a camera. This was partly his fault. When they'd passed a Christmas tree farm on their drive to the cabin, Daniel had spotted a pathetic-looking runt of a tree and Jack had acquiesced if Daniel bore the brunt of the decorating responsibility. He'd had a couple strings of lights sequestered away from some Christmas long ago and a few baubles and balls from who knew when. He'd tuned out Daniel's monologue about their most likely age and origin. The cabin had been in his family for many generations and, despite spending the holidays here as often as possible, away from the over saccharine, memory plagued frenzy of the rest of civilization, he'd never unearthed the decorations from their beat up, dust covered box. He had a vague recollection of a grandfather or perhaps a great grandfather being associated with the box. The ornaments held no sentimental value for him, though, not like the ones he hid away in his attic back home, the ones held together with popsicle sticks, glue, and glitter made by a pair of tiny hands. Shoving that memory back as far as it would go, Jack refocused on the dusty, meaningless box and the mess of fallen tree vs. Daniel at his feet.

A trumpeting sneeze from the archeologist trying to detangle himself from the fallen pine attested to the layer of dust covering the found box. Jack knelt down and freed Daniel's left leg, resettling the pine on its perch and shaking his head. It had even more of a bend in it now.

"You know, when I said you were going to be in charge of decorating the tree, I meant with ornaments and lights, not yourself." Brushing himself off and sneezing again for good measure, Daniel sent him a glare.

"Ha, ha, ha, you're hilarious." Daniel readjusted the tree. The top half wavered and flopped, dropping a load of pine needles.

"I think you broke it." Daniel tried again. The top of the tree let out a final, feeble crack and fell back to the floor in unison with Daniel's shoulders. On the tree stand, the rest of the trunk looked headless. If Daniel hadn't looked so glum, Jack would have laughed.

"Well, so we decorate the bottom half." Wrapping his arms around himself and avoiding his gaze, Daniel nudged the fallen top half with his toe, releasing a fountain of needles. The pathetic twig of a thing looked absolutely naked and worthy of nothing more than firewood.

"Daniel, it's no big deal. I've never put up a tree here anyway." Daniel, who was still avoiding his gaze, turned his back and didn't answer. Jack drew a hand through his hair and tried to find some patience.

He'd been afraid of this. In inviting the team up to his cabin sanctuary, he'd hoped that the four of them would have a way to escape from the plague of weighty emotions bound to visit this time of year. They all had their holiday demons. For him, it was memories of Charlie and Christmases long past, the main reason he was spending the holiday far away from all that had ever meant Christmas with Charlie, especially the box in his attic. As far as Teal'c went, the Tauri holiday season wasn't one to bring memories, but the perseveration on family units and quality time with parents and children was something Jack suspected might make the guy a bit down, not that he'd ever mention it. The same was true with Carter. He'd read her file. He knew her mother had died, but that she had a brother somewhere and a father who she didn't seem to talk to or about very often if ever. And then, of course, there was Daniel.

He'd read Daniel's file, too. He knew all about the fact that he'd lost his parents at a young age, spent time in the foster care system, and had a nomadic, academically stellar, but seemingly family-lacking life prior to the whole Abydos situation. Jack wasn't sure whether Daniel had celebrated the Tauri holidays on Abydos. They'd never talked about that time of year. To be completely honest, Jack hadn't really been sure whether Daniel celebrated Christmas until he'd been adamant that they pull over and pick up this discarded Christmas shrub now decapitated in his cabin's living room.

"Daniel?" Daniel still wasn't looking at him. Jack bit his tongue and let out a sigh. So much for escaping holiday demons…

"I'm guessing this isn't about the tree." Daniel let out a laugh that lacked any amusement

and shook his head, keeping his back turned.

"It's stupid." From the congested nature of Daniel's voice, Jack was willing to guess the younger man was barely holding back tears. Jack crossed his arms and waited. After a few minutes, Daniel turned around, the only evidence of losing his composure a slightly red tinge to his overly watery eyes which could be chalked up to the dust in the air. Jack chose not to comment.

"Well, if you want to make this shrub into kindling and go find a more suitable specimen outside, the sun's still up for another few hours and I've got an axe around here somewhere." The hopeful smile that returned to Daniel's face had Jack grabbing his coat and boots before the man could reply.

Suitably attired for the bitter winter chill outside the cabin, Jack listened to Daniel thudding along behind him through the snow. He'd found a handsaw along with the axe. The proper tools and the abundance of trees on his property had things stacked in their favor tree-cutting-wise. The only problem was that, thanks to the blowing of wind, the snowdrifts were up to their hips if not higher.

"Maybe this was a bad idea. Snow's too high to chop any of them." Daniel's voice was muffled behind his scarf and breathless from the chill. Jack shook his head. If the man had been close to or in tears in regards to a lack of a proper tree, he was damn well going to rise to the challenge and make this happen.

Jack paused and surveyed the woods. There was maybe two hours of daylight left. What little warmth the sun had brought was starting to fade. He'd lost the feeling in his toes and, while the snow encased around his legs was making his knee feel about ten years younger, it wasn't doing the rest of him any good. They'd probably have more luck where the trees met the lake. While the water was frozen over, the snowdrifts would be shallower and it might be a tad bit warmer.

"Head down closer to the lake. Snow won't be as deep near the water." Nodding his understanding, Daniel twisted and plowed his way through the trees towards the lake. Jack followed.

The snow did actually lessen in height the closer they grew to the waterline. By the time they were on the edge of the ice, it was barely ankle deep. Daniel still in the lead, they followed the edge of the iced over lake, inspecting saplings.

"We don't have all that many lights and decorations, so we might not want anything too big," Jack called. A few feet away, Daniel's hat bobbed in understanding. They carried on for a bit until Daniel stopped, pointing at a decent looking fir tree. It came up to their waists, but was elegant though diminutive. The boughs were well dispersed and full, leaving little space for too many decorations and looking festive enough without much help.

"Nice." Jack knelt next to Daniel and dug out the area around the base of the trunk. Together, they made fast work clearing out space to saw.

Jack motioned for Daniel to step back, sliding the handsaw under the snow-ladden boughs. Focused so closely analyzing the best way to make a clean cut, Jack didn't pay any attention to Daniel. He didn't spare the man a second glance until a surprised "woah" and a sickening crack of a splash announced trouble.

"Daniel?!" A quick glance revealed the errant man in question, three quarters submerged in the icy water, arms flailing and head bobbing around through a hole in the ice about halfway out in the lake.

"Damn it. Hold on. I'm coming." Wishing for his off world pack or at least a rope, Jack carefully stepped out onto the ice, listening and feeling for any crack or give.

"Stop splashing. Get your body to the edge of the hole and flop onto the ice. Kick your legs and try to slide out towards me." Jack watched Daniel follow instructions, wincing at the slight shift in the ice below his feet.

"Keep going, Daniel, you're doing great. Kick and slide." Daniel was most of the way out of the ice, waving his arms and legs like a belly flopped snow angel. Jack gazed back at the shore, wishing once more for rope and looking for a branch or something that could be a stand in.

By the time his eyes had fallen on a limb half emerging from the snow, Daniel was completely on solid ground and crawling slowly and carefully towards Jack.

"That's it, keep moving. Nice and easy, listen to the ice." If Jack could have bottled the look Daniel sent him, it would have made some powerful antifreeze. Jack smiled and waited till he was close enough before helping the man to his feet.

"How about we go back inside?" Teeth chattering too violently to talk, Daniel nodded and followed Jack to the dock and into the cabin.

By the time they made it through the threshold of the door, Daniel was pretty sure he was going to lose his toes and fingers. He could barely move his legs and arms. The sodden clothing encasing him from his shoulders down was starting to freeze, making movement difficult. The worst part was the fact that he had moved through the initial pain to total numbness. If he wasn't looking at his feet, legs, hands, heck, his entire body, he wasn't sure he'd know it was still attached. Daniel was sure he'd read somewhere that that kind of sensation or lack thereof was really bad when it came to frostbite.

Shoving the grate in front of the fireplace to the side, Jack poked at the embers, tossing the fallen head of the tree, a couple scraps of newspaper, and a log onto the reigniting fire before turning back to Daniel. The man stood dripping and shaking in the middle of the living room, a pale, terrified expression on his face.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Take them off." Jack gestured at his clothes. Daniel's eyes tripled in size.

"What? Here? Now? With… you?" he squawked. Jack smirked.

"No, Daniel, I mean back outside, or better yet, back in the lake. Yes, here, now, with me, or you're going to start losing parts. Let's go. I'll grab you something to change into." Chuckling at the expression on Daniel's face, Jack tossed his own coat over a chair and walked out of his boots in the direction of the bedrooms.

He'd been waffling about whether or not to go into Daniel's bag and fish around for his own clothes or to grab the nearest, warmest thing from Jack's closet when a series of yelps and screeches followed by a chorus of cackling resounded from the living room.

If Jack had wished for a camera earlier that day, he was sorely cursing the lack of one now. Daniel stood butt naked, his back to the fire and his hands grasping to cover what little was left of his dignity. In the doorway, laughing so hard tears were streaming from her averted eyes, was Carter and behind her, a shocked looking Teal'c was staring straight at the very naked, furiously blushing Daniel.

"Merry Christmas! I take it the gate's fixed?" Eyes shining with laughter, Carter fixed her averted gaze on Jack.

"Yes, sir. I… I'm not going to ask." Daniel cleared his throat and crept backwards towards the bedrooms, blush extending from his cheeks down his neck, muttering swears. Jack swallowed a don't ask don't tell joke at Daniel's expense and grinned.

"He, uh, fell in the lake. We were trying to chop down a tree." He took one of the bundles from Carter's arms, heart swelling in gratitude with the tinkle of a six pack, and stepped back to let them in.

"You were chopping down a tree in the lake?"

"Do trees grow in bodies of water on this planet, O'Neill?"

Shaking his head, he retreated towards the kitchen area, unloading the winter-chilled beer into the fridge and making room amid the various fixings for more of the groceries in Carter's arms.

"No. It's a long story…" he was about to inquire about what was going on back at the SGC and perhaps even hazard a question about what had been up with the gate which had the potential to launch Carter into a monologue he knew none of them would understand when Daniel reappeared. In addition to the dark red blush still well in place on his face, he was now fully clothed.

"Can I have one of those?" Smirking, Jack handed him a beer, popping off the cap on the fridge.

"You should probably drink something warm." Holding up a very un-Christmas finger, Daniel took a swig from the beer, made a face at the taste, and shuffled over to the couch closest to the fireplace, burrowing under blankets.

"Cheers!" Jack called, passing out beer to Carter and himself with eggnog for Teal'c. Still muffling laughter, Carter set down the rest of her belongings next to Teal'c's and made her way after them towards the living room, pausing by the decapitated tree.

"What happened to this one? Is it from the lake?" Jack cast Daniel a look in his blanket cocoon. He looked sad and mortified. Jack was about to try and turn the conversation in a new direction when, to his complete and utter surprise, Teal'c began to disrobe.

"Woah, woah, Teal'c, buddy, what's going on?" Teal'c paused, shirt removed, but pants thankfully still in place.

"Is it not customary for us to disrobe to celebrate the Christmas season, O'Neill?" Jack bit his lip and ran his fingers through his hair, looking back and forth between the shocked expressions of his teammates and the Jaffa. Carter hid her laughter in a swig of beer. Daniel closed his eyes and sighed.

"Yeah no, Teal'c, that's, uh… not customary. Daniel's clothes were wet and cold from falling through the ice. He, uh, was mid change when you came in." With a bow of his head, Teal'c donned his clothes again. Jack shoved Daniel's feet to the floor, making room on the couch, and stared into the fire.

"The songs of your planet do not speak truthfully then, O'Neill." Jack shifted his gaze back to Teal'c who had found a home in a dilapidated armchair, then to Carter and Daniel, opening his mouth and then shaking his head.

"Daniel?" A smile beating back the blush still on his cheeks, Daniel brought his head out of the blankets and looked to Teal'c.

"What songs, Teal'c?" Teal'c paused a moment in thought before replying and his answer had Jack laughing so hard he practically cracked a rib.

"On our journey here, Captain Carter had us listen to music she called carols specific to this festive season. One song played quite often. In the piece, listeners are asked to don their gay apparel. Captain Carter has explained to me that this word means both happiness and homosexuality." Jack wasn't sure what Daniel said in response, if anything. He didn't stop laughing so loudly that he couldn't hear their conversation for a good five minutes. Given the tears once again streaming down Carter's face, he surmised she'd had a similar reaction. Daniel was once again blushing, but laughter replaced any of the earlier mortification lining his face.

Glancing around the room at the decapitated, half lit Christmas tree and the shining faces of his team, Jack smiled. Sure, it hadn't exactly been what he'd planned when he'd invited them all up to his cabin to celebrate the holiday, but this was exactly the kind of Christmas worth celebrating.


	2. Safety Dance

2\. Safety Dance

It was supposed to have been an easy mission and it would have been if not for the weather. They'd gated to P9X-3792 and found a culture and civilization not unlike Earth's, though perhaps a couple dozen decades in the future. All had gone swimmingly until, well, it had come to swimming.

The government of P9X-3792 had headquarters a couple miles from the gate and a designated meeting place a couple miles further than that. The inhabitants had what was the planet's equivalent of cars, large electric vehicles which hovered a couple inches above roads. Carter had been unsurprisingly enthralled with the way they were preprogrammed and drove themselves between routes. Daniel, equally unsurprisingly, had been excited to learn about the changes that had made to societal structure when no one owned a means of transport any longer and the world itself operated on some bizarre form of mass transit.

What had been the truly surprising thing was what had happened on the second night of diplomatic discussions. It seemed, like Earth, P9X-3792 had suffered from global warming and, though the inhabitants of the planet had made changes to their lifestyles, the damage had already been done to the extent that wild, destructive weather patterns persisted. During the second day of diplomatic negotiations, it had been announced that they were in the path of a massive hurricane far larger and more powerful than any SG1 had heard of on Earth.

This announcement had been no cause for alarm. The buildings they found themselves in were able to withstand such a weather pattern, but the fallout after the hurricane was another matter entirely. At the conclusion of negotiations, they'd made their way out of the bunker to a planet that looked far different than the way it had a few days previous. It was unnerving. Jack had been glad of the distracted reaction of the locals who, far more concerned with their own, had sent SG1 off in the direction of the gate on the still somehow operating transport system.

As far as Jack was concerned, the mission was completed and he was thoroughly relieved to be alone with his team, riding slow-moving, programmed transport back to the gate. It had been a few very long days upon days of talks. Daniel was hoarse from all the talking, but, now that a plan was in place and Carter had a laptop full of schematics and data on possible trade, the cat was in the bag, or whatever that saying was. Jack was pretty sure that his brain was going to leak out of his ears if he had to listen to one more meeting and, with a look at Teal'c, he was pretty sure the Jaffa felt similarly, the hand on his staff weapon looked more ready than it needed to given the lack of threat.

Jack had been pondering what exactly he planned to do with the downtime the long mission had undoubtedly accrued when he saw it. Water from the hurricane surge, which had been high along the roadway, completely covered the path in front of them.

"Uh… Jack?" the concerned rasp from Daniel's seat and the flurry of commotion from Carter's seat meant that he was not alone in the discovery.

"I'm aware, Daniel. Save your voice. Carter?" She had leapt to the front of the preprogrammed car, scouring the controls for some sort of stopping mechanism. Jack cursed whoever had let them ride to the gate alone. As great as it was to finally be away from the locals and have a moment's silence, he'd rather not drown.

"Isn't this car electric?" Daniel whispered and cleared his throat. Standing to hover next to Carter, Jack glared back at Daniel.

"Don't waste your voice on the obvious. Teal'c, see if you can open the door. Daniel, give him a hand." Rolling his eyes in return, Daniel came to stand by Teal'c and fussed with the door panel controls, earning a tinny little voiced reprimand from the command system not to open the doors while the transport was in motion. Teal'c gave them a shove. They did not open.

"Carter?" Jack watched her poke buttons, pull levers, and try to gain control over the electric transport slowly driving them onward towards the brand new body of water.

"I don't know, sir, I'm trying." Jack frowned.

"I believe the saying is turn around, don't drown, Captain." Carter let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head, forging on with the buttons.

"I know, sir, but that's not going to stop the transport." Jack looked out the windshield. It was like slow motion, the electric car advancing onward into the rushing water ahead.

He joined Carter in pushing buttons and pulling levers and was about to shoot the damn thing when they entered the water. It took a while to stop. The water crested over the hood of the transport and covered the windshield like white water rapids. They continued onward to about midway through the brand new river before the transport's engine seized, stalled out, and they sunk, half submerged.

"Get the door open before this becomes a submarine." Jack strode to when Daniel and Teal'c worked on the door mechanism. Daniel jabbed at the buttons, not even earning the tinny voice's scolding anymore.

"It's electric, too. Without power, it's not going to budge," he rasped. Jack handed Teal'c his staff and picked up his own weapon.

"Then we make our own hole. Get ready to swim kids. Head in the direction of the gate and stay together." Jack raised his weapon and…

"Wait!" The shout seemed to have taken up all that was left of Daniel's voice. He was mouthing something and waving his arms. He cleared his throat and tried again, but it seemed as if he'd finally lost his voice entirely.

"Daniel, we're about to start floating. This thing is totaled anyway. Shooting our way out isn't going to hurt negotiations." Making a desperate face, Daniel shook his head and mouthed something more slowly, focusing on Carter who seemed to pick up what he was saying.

"Downed power lines is a good thought, but I think that's an earth problem. Their grid is underground. I mean there could be other things in the water. We don't know about native wildlife or other threats, but we don't really have another option." Nodding and looking nervous, Daniel got out of the way.

The doors, which had seemed quite strong and solid against Daniel and Teal'c's attempts, buckled and bent outward after a single staff blast. Rising smoke met the trickle of dark water.

"Let's go." Holding his staff above his head, Teal'c led the way out of the vessel, the shift in weight and the trickle of water reorienting the hull. Carter went next, keeping her pack raised above her head lest the precious technology within meet the same fate as the transport. Daniel followed with Jack in his wake, casting one last silent glance at the now very totaled transport.

"If I'm right, the gate's less than a mile away. Nice little hike. Keep moving, kids." Jack was squelching his way down the road before Carter protested.

"Sir, wait! Shouldn't we tell someone about this?" Jack paused and turned around. Carter and Daniel stood at the water's edge, Daniel gesticulating back at the mostly sunken ship.

"You want me to give them my insurance card, Captain? I'm sure it'll do wonders for my deductible…. There's no one here. Bound to be someone by the gate, though, so let's get going and we can tell them on the way out." Carter gave a nod and stepped forward after Jack and Teal'c, but Daniel made no sign to move in their direction. As Jack watched, his earlier gesticulations changed into more of a modern dance move. Jack paused and waited.

"Uh… Daniel?" The modern dance quickly devolved into something less refined and in a matter of moments, Daniel was throwing off his pack, quickly followed by his jacket, shirt, boots, pants, and underwear.

"Oh for crying out loud, Daniel, I'm sure that there's a reason… yeah, no, I'm not. What the hell is going on?" Jack watched as the now very naked member of his team continued to dance about silently in the street in front of the flooded roadway, running his hands over himself in a panicked way that left no room for modesty.

Jack cast a glance at the clothed members of his team. Carter was beet red, laughing silently, and looking anywhere but at Daniel, still dancing his impromptu jig. Teal'c had removed his pack and was searching within it, also averting his gaze. Jack looked back at Daniel. The man had stopped dancing and was now standing very still in the middle of the road, his eyes as big as dinner plates, as if he had suddenly realized that he was standing in the middle of the road, naked, in front of his team on an offworld mission.

"Daniel?" Daniel blushed deeply and gathered his hands in front of himself as if to hide what everyone had already seen quite well. Jack cleared his throat.

"What the hell was that?" Daniel opened and closed his mouth, but failed to make any explanatory sound.

"Auditioning for the naked nutcracker?" The blush on Daniel's cheeks deepened. Hands still shielding his manhood, he waddled closer to Jack. As he approached, Jack made out small red welts peppering their way across Daniel's flesh, from his feet through to his torso. The smirk barely tapping down laughter at Daniel's performance evaporated.

"Were you being bitten by something?" Jack's question and Daniel's mortified nod silenced the laughing captain who joined Jack at Daniel's side, a frown gracing her features as she took in the marks. Teal'c joined her as well.

"Looks like fire ant bites to me, sir. They're known to float in colonies after a flood like this one damages their habitat, at least on Earth. Could be the same sort of thing happening here, sir." Daniel had grown impossibly redder with the combined inspection of all three members of his team and was burning a hole in his toes with his gaze. Rolling his eyes, Jack slapped Daniel on the shoulder.

"Think you got them all off of you, Martha Graham?" Not meeting his gaze, Daniel nodded. Teal'c thrust forward a fist full of clothing from his pack. Red face finally rising from his toes, Daniel thankfully put on the oversized garments that smelled faintly of Teal'c's BO before gathering the clothes he scattered about the road and packing them all away into the discarded pack. He held it a great way from his body with one hand, keeping one eye on it as if it were about to bite on the trek back to the gate.

It was a while before Jack found Daniel back on base. The fact that the linguist had lost his voice and been bitten by fire ants had relegated him to a longer inspection in the infirmary and they'd gone through the debriefing without him, his input on the mission well detailed already in the treaty and associated documents. In his search for the man, Jack had tried to come up with something to say. After all, it wasn't everyday you saw your teammate display himself in such a way. He'd seen Daniel naked loads of times – shower and locker room mishaps, while sharing a tent off world, and that time at his cabin over the holidays – but it wasn't every day you saw your teammate dance naked in such a manner on a planet far away from Earth.

Jack finally located Daniel back where he'd started looking for the man – his office. The door was ajar and he could just make out the slumped shape of his friend in the light of the desk lamp. Daniel's head was down on his arms, glasses just out of the reach of his hand. Jack could see the angry bite marks from the alien ants on his neck just under the gape of his shirt collar.

Smiling impishly, Jack slid the object out of his pocket and nosed about for the CD player he was sure was somewhere in Daniel's office. Janet had mentioned pushing Benadryl at Daniel when she'd stopped into the debriefing in order to avoid any possible allergic reaction to the bites. Jack knew he didn't have to been too careful. With a dose of Benadryl, Daniel would be sleeping heavily and out for the count for a while.

Jack found the CD player and slipped the disc inside. It had taken him a while to come up with just the right idea and he was glad Siler had had the disc in his truck. He carefully set it to loop on the right track and then, satisfied that it was playing at a low enough volume that it wouldn't wake the man right away, he slunk from the room, _the Safety Dance from Men Without Hats_ playing merrily in his wake.

He made it all the way home, had dinner, and was about to turn in for the evening before he heard any sort of response. Carter had phoned him and, through laughter that made her barely intelligible, told him to check his email. The video that sat in his inbox took forever to download, but had him laughing so hard it was clearly worth the wait.

In the shaky footage shot by a hand made unsteady with laughter, Daniel sat in the same position as earlier, fast asleep on his desk. Behind him to the tune of the still looping song, Siler and Teal'c were moving in a surprisingly choreographed routine and along the bottom of the screen, someone, he assumed Carter, had changed the lyrics of the song. They now read:

You can dance if you want to

You can leave your pants behind

Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance

Well they're no friends of mine

I say, we can go where we want to

A place where they will never find

And we can act like we come from out of this world

Leave the real one far behind

We can dance

The email was subjected Mandatory Debriefing Information and sent to all members of SG1. Shaking his head with a smile, Jack headed off to bed, looking forward to Daniel's reaction when he not only saw the video, but read the new offworld regulations requiring clothing to be worn at all times, unless said clothing resulted in extreme peril.


	3. An Appendix Adventure

3\. An Appendix Adventure

Shuffling out of his shoes and shouldering his apartment door closed behind him, Daniel trudged over to the couch and flopped down, tossing his glasses onto the coffee table. Between being out of phase and the whole Nicholas Ballard situation, the past week had taken every ounce of his physical and emotional strength. His whole body ached, his head swum, and his stomach rolled in an uncomfortable nausea. If he hadn't been aware of what had transpired the past few days, he would have assumed he was hungover, but the way he was feeling was definitely not the result of alcohol. He hadn't had anything to eat or drink other than a handful of infirmary saltines and some water and, though Janet had cleared SG1 of any radiation sickness, Daniel felt remarkably like he'd felt the day after celebrating the Abydonian New Year with Kasuf. Perhaps he was just emotionally hungover.

Unable to find a comfortable position on the couch, Daniel shuffled the rest of the way to his bedroom, deciding that perhaps all he needed was a good night's sleep.

He woke up drenched in sweat and shivering a few hours later. The realization that perhaps this was more serious than an emotional hangover and that maybe this was something for which he should seek some sort of medical attention was quickly overridden by a powerful clenching of his stomach and the urgent need to vomit.

He barely made it to the bathroom in time, catching his sleeve in the spray. Grossed out by the hot, wet sleeve and the cold, sweat drenched rest of his clothes, he peeled down to his boxers before once more embracing the porcelain throne with skin that was at once both goose pimpled with cold and covered in sweat.

It was a while before he could stop throwing up. The water and saltines he'd eaten had long since made their reappearance, followed by awful tasting bile. By the time he figured the sun should have started rising, Daniel was alternating between lying on the floor in the fetal position with his bath towel as a blanket and dry heaving. It was miserable. At some point, he fell asleep.

This time it was the ringing phone that brought him back to consciousness, that and the fact that it felt like something was driving a stake into his gut. He lifted his head from the cold tile floor in consideration of somehow getting to the phone and summoning help, but the small movement alone sent the world spinning and him lurching painfully back towards the night's previous position. The phone kept ringing, but Daniel was too otherwise occupied.

Jack had thought about following Daniel home. The younger man had looked out of sorts following his return to phase. Back on the pedestal in the pyramid with the giant aliens, Jack had been worried about whether or not the guy would make the walk back to the gate on his own. He'd come tumbling down the stairs on shaking legs and needed Jack's firm grasp on the back of his vest the whole way across the bridge, precariously tottering and complaining of persistent dizziness and nausea. Fraiser had given them the all clear, though, putting Daniel's symptoms down to a combination of exhaustion, low blood sugar from lack of eating for the majority of the week, and stress. Jack hadn't bought it. Something in his gut had him on red alert and, while he'd given Daniel the space he'd said he needed, Jack had his phone in one hand, dialing Daniel's number before he'd started drinking the cup of coffee he had in his other.

The red alert had klaxon's blaring when Daniel failed to pick up. The first time, he'd given Daniel the benefit of the doubt. It was early. They had the day off. Perhaps, Daniel just wasn't awake yet. The second, third, fourth, and fifth times he'd failed to pick up were something else entirely. By the sixth, Jack was in his truck driving over to Daniel's apartment.

Parallel parking in front of the building and tossing his keys in his hand while he waited for the elevator, Jack dialed again, hoping that maybe Daniel had gotten up early and gone for a run, been taking a long, hot morning shower, or perhaps had his head buried in something and lost track of his surroundings. Still, he didn't pick up.

Jack unlocked Daniel's door and let it close behind him, surveying the apartment. Daniel's shoes were a tripping hazard, but that wasn't abnormal. The couch cushions and throw blanket were mussed, but also not out of the range of normalcy for Daniel. Jack continued on to the bedroom. The unmade, unkempt, unoccupied bed had the hairs on Jack's neck at attention.

Jack turned back towards the bathroom and his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. Sprawled on the bathroom floor, Daniel looked paler than Jack had ever seen him and, despite Jack repeatedly calling his name, he continued not to respond. Had he not felt the pulse beating weakly, but persistently on Daniel's wrist, Jack would have assumed the worst. As it was, his phone was back out of his pocket, fingers dialing 911 and then Fraiser.

The ambulance came quickly. It was only when Jack was shepherding the two EMTs who looked young enough to still be in high school into Daniel's apartment that he calmed down enough to worry about possible security breaches from anything gate related Daniel had in his apartment and realized that perhaps his friend might not take too kindly to being exposed to strangers in nothing but his boxers.

Whatever the monitors said about Daniel's vitals had the pair moving quickly and Jack barely had the time to grab the blanket off Daniel's couch before they were wheeling him into the elevator, into the ambulance, and into the waiting arms of the medical team at the SGC security checkpoint.

The speed of the transfer of care nearly gave Jack whiplash and before he knew it, the ambulance was gone and they were down in the infirmary. Jack made himself as small as possible in the whirl of the room. He was dodging equipment, doing his best to stay within a possible line of sight of Daniel should he return to consciousness, when he noticed Carter appear to his right. She looked tense and worried and, Jack did a double take, was blushing. Jack looked back at Daniel and then back at her again before his brain caught up and he found himself swallowing a smirk of his own.

In the true trauma protocol response to an unconscious and unresponsive individual, the medical team had removed all articles of clothing in order to best see whether or not there were any obvious signs or injuries requiring or pointing to immediate medical interventions. In the glow of the room's light, Daniel lay splayed out on the stretcher, completely and totally exposed. Part of Jack wanted to spare the man his dignity and the rest of him didn't want to get in the way of whatever was going on. When Daniel started to blink like he was coming around, the later part of Jack won out.

Feeling a touch of blush covering his own cheeks and catching a lull in the activity of the room, Jack grabbed a nearby washrag and tossed it gently over Daniel's most private regions. It was just Jack's luck that the brand new tech decided at that very moment to do an about face with a tray of tools and, in order to avoid a face full of needles and scalpels, Jack pivoted to his right, slipped on a wet spot of flooring, and found himself suddenly falling hands first toward Daniel. Jack wasn't sure who screamed louder as he caught himself with his right hand on the washrag and the other just to the left of it.

"I guess that's one way to rouse him, colonel." Jack heard Janet comment as he quickly backtracked, trying desperately to forget every sensation he'd just felt with his right hand as it fully grasped the part of Daniel under the washrag. As he was about to question how to move on from such an encounter, Daniel arched forward on the stretcher, howling louder than before and he and Carter were pushed from the room.

Jack was staring at his sanitized hands, still trying to erase the memory of the incident when Janet reappeared. Teal'c had since joined them along with the general and the five of them took up the entirety of the hallway outside the room.

"Doc?" In the fluorescent lighting of the hallway, the diminutive doctor looked slightly harried. Jack bit his lip and focused.

"We're moving Daniel to the operating room now. Thanks to Daniel's reaction to some inventive abdominal palpation on the colonel's part, we're thinking it's appendicitis. The ultrasound just confirmed. We're hoping to complete the appendectomy prior to any peritonitis. I'll let you know more when I do." Nodding her head at the general's "god speed" and tossing a wave their way, Janet followed the stretcher baring Daniel down the hallway to the OR.

"Of what does Doctor Fraiser speak?" Jack let himself zone out as Carter launched into a basic anatomy lesson in response to Teal'c's question, thankful that Hammond was now walking away in the opposite direction. Jack found himself paying attention again at Teal'c's next question.

"How did O'Neill's touching of Daniel Jackson's genitalia affect his intestines?" If Carter had been blushing earlier, Jack was out of words to describe the tomato-like hue of her face now.

"Ack! I did not… There was a towel and I tripped. And the appendix is on your lower right, right, Carter? I touched Daniel's when I caught myself and he… reacted." Jack was pretty sure the memory of Daniel's scream was all that was keeping his 21C from losing it at his expense.

"Look, it'll be a while. Let's grab some coffee or something." Jack led the way down to the commissary, hoping he was imagining the mutter he barely heard under Carter's breath about the things he'd already grabbed.

It took a while for the anesthesia to wear off and longer for Daniel to fully come around, thanks to the pain medicine. Jack was grateful not to be on the bedside shift when, as Carter later informed him, Fraiser had stopped in to assist with the removal of Daniel's foley catheter and Teal'c, who had been present for moral support, had inquired about Daniel's experiences with people at the SGC touching his manhood. Carter had laughed so hard telling him that he barely pieced the story together.

Jack had come up with all sorts of reasons why he couldn't sit with Daniel in the infirmary after that, even going so far as to get a haircut and finish filling out his backlog of paperwork. One awkward conversation about fishing had Jack running for the hills and then the whole replicator situation had, thankfully, put them on opposite sides of the galaxy. Jack was finally about to try and broach the topic, grabbing the last items from his locker on his way off base for the exceedingly elusive leave barring further Asgard visitation, when his eyes fell on a folded piece of paper on the top shelf.

Pulling the paper down, Jack quickly placed it as the takeout menu from the local Chinese place. A very familiar scrawl took up the upper right hand corner. "Most people buy me dinner first, but thanks for the towel. Your place next Friday? I'll bring the beer," it read. Jack smiled, shoving the paper in his back pocket before making one last lap of the labs. Maybe this time, he could convince the three of them to come with him to the cabin, clothes fully intact.


End file.
